April began in true Exmouth classic weather with light off shore winds prevailing for most of the day. This months charters began when Wog (don’t worry….thats what everyone in Exmouth knows Warren as….ask the local butcher John, he’ll throw in some colourful stories too to boot I’m sure). Wog took Clive and the boys on a two day charter before they hired the 7m boat to fish for themslves. Launching from Bungei they went trawling and got onto a mixture of several mahi mahi, a giant queenfish, and striped bonito. Their 2nd day they went bottom bouncing in Exmouth Gulf, and did well coming home with a mixed bag of spangled emperor, rankin cod, tomato cod and red emperor all within the 600mm-800mm range,

The next charter Wog launched from Tantabiddi taking the lads out bottom bouncing again. There they caught a mixture of sweetlip emperor, spangled emperor, tomato cod and a goat fish (very bloody good eating). In additon they saw an 8-9m whale shark cruise on past, with 4-5m whale shark hang around the boat for quite sometime. The boys were stoked on this , as they had never seen one before and given the price of a whale shark tour was an unexpected bonus.

On the next fishing charter Wog took Craig and Jim with the aim of catching them their first ever Marlin. On the first day heading wide North of Tantabiddi they caught 3 Blacks in the 35-45kg range. They hooked a couple of larger ones but dropped them before they could get them to the boat. Mahi Mahi are running thick at the moment and theres no shortage of them getting caught. Over the next couple of days they did really well catching small black marlin straight out of Tantabiddi. All up they caught 5 black marlin, 15 mahi mahi and a yellow fin tuna.

Exmouth Boat Hire

John and friends hired the 6m boat last week. Launching from Bundegi they headed for the Murion Islands trawling for Mackerel. After sharing some of their catch with the sharks they came home pretty happy with a mixed bag of Mackerel, bonitos and tuna. Other boats bottom bouncing reported losses to sharks around the Murion Islands.

Meanwhile Kim hired the 5.5m hire boat took out his 80 year old father in law and headed into Light House Bay with afew of their own marks and bagged out on many species.

Peter and his family flew in from over east on a spear fishing holiday and hired the 6m boat. He said it was pretty tough going on days. The sharks yet again made a presence claiming their cut off any nice sized Blue Bones he speared. With the water turning green and murky on the last few days made things challenging as he sought out mackerel, but without any luck.

Tantabiddi has claimed its fair share of props this last week also. Most who came unstuck were nearing the boat ramp on the low tide. There are a few large rocks near the boat ramp as you approach it, especially on low tide. As we always say don’t be afraid to trim.

The week didn’t go without its dramas unfortunately. We had a report that the 7.85m hire boat was seen on the trailer with the brand new motors running dry for more than 5 mins! After several concerned calls to our mechanic and witnesses, then impeller checks; it all boiled down to a storm in a teacup arising from Boat Ramp rage. Thank God it was that and not the new motors!! We recommend when coming in from Tantabiddi at this time of year when its busy with commercial operators and recreational boaters all trying to get in before the tide drops too low. To avoid bottle neck at the ramp, on the low tide in the afternoon, come in alittle earlier before the tide hits that 0.5m mark. Your day out might be slightly shorter, but you avoid the lengthy queues and waits, and the odd angry boaty whose patience threshold is lower than average, especially if they have had a below average days fishing. We also recieved a call on Sunday night from water police that one of our boats had to be towed in by sea rescue because of steering system failure. Scratching our heads in confusion because no one had alerted us, we finally found out from sea rescue it was another boat hire operator’s boat and not ours. These guys musn’t be having a very good week as one of their other boats sunk out at Wilderness Island the other week. After 14 odd years in the boat hire game, the issue and costs of maintenance are large and important and you need to be onto it big time. So as far as marine incidences are concerned that’s about as dramatic as it got for us and we’re pretty happy about that. Till next time